How many of you guys wonder about other factors when you see these posts? As a few have stated including paul certainly the area and income levels come into play.

How about the way a company is presenting themselves and of course as has been mentioned the salesmanship or abilities of the company. I know that there is a huge spread in this forum and in the industry in these categories which to me makes it hard for folks to compare apples to apples.

If your in a professional looking rig, in uniform or clean attire etc...versus a simple setup with a loose muffler and looking like I just rolled out of bed and smellin like a good bottle of lure,

to me those are more of the factors that play into sale / no sale and thats me as a customer as well as a service provider.

Impressions cost or make money in my mind along with the economics/politics of an area or client base

hd, I didn't mention presentation because it's not much of a factor in our urban/suburban area. My competition is well groomed, well trained, ( Except for the new guys and they're learning ) and their equipment is not shoddy.

We are very aware of our competition and really enjoy telling customers who they had before. This really blows them away. We do not steal a lot of customers from our competitors but we take plenty from pest control companies and we're going to talk about that in Vegas.

no offenses here but when i put between 4-5000 in my pocket almost every week for removal and exclusion work i have to be doing something right and probably starting later this fall i am going to start doing pest control ie interior exterior sprays for bed bugs roaches etc my license should be here this week or next as a pesticide applicator

I kind of resisted replying to this post as this subject has been hashed over a ton of times here but.....it always amazes me when someone comes on and states there is only one right way to run a adc business and if your're not doing it my way your're doing it wrong. Unless you've have worked in every part of the country there is no way you can say one pricing structure fits all. I'am going to try to address some of the statements made here and hope that it might shed some light on how we run our business. I'am not about to say it's the ONLY way to run your business but it has worked for us pretty well for 17yrs. next month. 1: I live and work in a very small market (roughly 200,000 people in the two connties I am lic. to work in) area that is mostly rural,ranches/farms. If you were to specialize in one or two animals you would not be in business in 6 months. To stay solvent you have to do everything from moles to mountain lions and everything in between. 2: We absolutly have to work 7 days a week. Try telling a almound farmer that calls you to catch beaver that are falling 4 trees a night at a thousand dollars apice "I know it's Thursday and tomarrow, being Friday, I'll be pulling my traps and I'll be back Monday to reset 'cause I don't work on weekends" and see how he reacts to that. 3: We DO charge a per animal fee for everything except exclusion work and bat work, for these kind of jobs of course we charge a per job fee. My ranchers and farmers aren't cheep but they are frugal meaning they just don't throw their money at something their not getting any benifit out of. Such as if I were to take them a contract to sign them up for a year of adc work, the polite ones would say something like "I'll get back to you on that" but most would ask me why I'am wasting their valuable time with this and to put it where the sun don't shine! And I would agree with them because most of the year they won't need my services. They have no problem paying my service call/set up fee and our per animal fee as they see it as only paying for what they get. Again Iam not saying this is the only way to run an adc business but for us, in our area, it has worked out well.

Vinke - Flip flops or not I understand what your saying and agree it does come down to people skills, just know after being in multiple industries and situations that some folks do judge the book by its cover even though I'd prefer they didn't. Some of the best people I'll ever know don't give a "hoot" what anyone thinks of the way they dress or that they use castor for cologne! lol!

hard to say much on this forum or any other for that matter without the "tone" of the post getting perceived correctly

Bob Hassel, sounds like a lot of people could envy you. My old man was a cattle dealer so I know a little bit about dealing with farmers. My dad never made a pile of money but he loved his work and judging by the amount of people who attended his funeral, was well liked. I don't think a man can ask for too much more out of life.